How the SF Marathon became not world-famous but exceptional

Grant Avenue halfway through the S.F. Marathon during the fast years when the course finished on Market Street.

Grant Avenue halfway through the S.F. Marathon during the fast years when the course finished on Market Street.

Photo: Steve Ringman, The Chronicle

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Runners go downhill from the Palace of the Legion of Honor toward Lake Street during the 1986 race.

Runners go downhill from the Palace of the Legion of Honor toward Lake Street during the 1986 race.

Photo: Steve Ringman, The Chronicle

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S.F. native Leo Rosales is running his ninth marathon Sunday. “We run through so many spots in the city — Fisherman’s Wharf, the Presidio, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury. It’s just wonderful.” less

S.F. native Leo Rosales is running his ninth marathon Sunday. “We run through so many spots in the city — Fisherman’s Wharf, the Presidio, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury. It’s just ... more

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

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A runner relaxes after the first San Francisco Marathon.

A runner relaxes after the first San Francisco Marathon.

Photo: David Randolph, The Chronicle

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Leo Rosales (center) will run Sunday. “I feel proud that so many runners from around the world come here,” he says.

Leo Rosales (center) will run Sunday. “I feel proud that so many runners from around the world come here,” he says.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

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Runners at the 12-mile mark of the S.F. Marathon in 1984, with the race’s peak field at about 7,000 runners.

Runners at the 12-mile mark of the S.F. Marathon in 1984, with the race’s peak field at about 7,000 runners.

Photo: Steve Ringman, The Chronicle

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Leo Rosales (left) runs a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Leo Rosales (left) runs a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

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Leo Rosales stretches before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Leo Rosales stretches before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

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Leo Rosales warms up before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Leo Rosales warms up before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

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Leo Rosales poses for a photograph before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Leo Rosales poses for a photograph before a race near Lake Merced in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

How the SF Marathon became not world-famous but exceptional

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For a flash in the mid-1980s, the San Francisco Marathon seemed to be on the cusp of becoming one of the world’s great races.

Organizers back then imagined a Triple Crown of American marathons — Boston in the spring, New York City in the fall, and sandwiched in the summer, the jewel of the West Coast 26.2-milers: San Francisco.

It never quite happened. Politics and geography kept the race too small and, frankly, too difficult to ever rank among the most competitive. But the modern race — which takes place Sunday — nonetheless draws roughly 6,000 runners to a course that climbs and curls through some of San Francisco’s most scenic sites and makes it one of the top destination races in the country.

San Francisco has “made peace” with the fact that it’s never going to be a Boston or New York, said Antonio Rossmann, who’s run the local race more than 30 times — including the first one in 1977.

“But you have probably the most beautiful urban course you can imagine,” Rossmann said. “It’s a challenging course, but it’s a terrific race to just see San Francisco at its best.”

The amateur runners who put together the city’s first marathon were a brazen sort. All members of a club called the Pamakid Runners, they drew up a looping course around Golden Gate Park and Lake Merced, and put up flyers advertising the event. Police told them they couldn’t hold the marathon because it wasn’t safe. The runners did it anyway.

That first race drew about 1,000 runners. Over the next four decades, the size would swell and contract — the field peaking in 1984 at about 7,000 runners, then slipping when the city demanded course changes to appease residents and business owners who didn’t love their neighborhoods being overrun. Only in the past decade or so have the numbers started climbing again.

Along the way, the course itself has transformed. For a while it raced through Chinatown and North Beach. In the 1990s, the race started on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then, for a few years, the bridge was taken off the course completely before being brought back in 2005.

In the 1980s — the speedy years — organizers developed a course that started in Golden Gate Park and ended with a run up pancake-flat Market Street. In those days, world-class runners were at the front of the pack — people like Bay Area native Nancy Ditz, who competed in the 1988 Olympics and for a while was ranked the second-best female runner in the country, and Pete Pfitzinger, a two-time Olympic marathoner whose training books are sacred to many modern amateur racers.

The race record belongs to Simeon Kigen, a Kenyan runner who couldn’t compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and so ran San Francisco instead. His time was 2:10:18 — better than any of his compatriots in the Olympics that year.

The fact that Kigen’s record has endured has less to do with his speed than with the fate of the San Francisco Marathon. Within a few years, the course had changed and become hillier, with more twists and turns, too.

Today, the male winners typically cross the finish line in about 2½ hours, the women in 2:45 or so.

“The problem with that fast version was that it basically shut down the city at a time that was just not good for tourism,” said John Monsoor, who was the race director of the San Francisco Marathon for five years in the 1990s. “The result is the course they have now, which is very nice and scenic. There’s just no way to make a fast course that works for the rest of the city.

“OK, sorry, we’re not going to be fast,” he added, “but it’s always going to be a race. Somebody’s going to win.”

The race may no longer draw the big names, but it’s still a favorite among runners — for the beauty, now, and the singular challenge. It regularly ranks among the 15 largest races in the United States. Nearly a third of its runners come from out of state.

The modern course is the result of decades of tinkering intended to match San Francisco’s marathon to its culture, said race director Peter Nantell. San Francisco was never going to embrace a race the size of Boston or New York — which drew 27,000 and 48,000 runners, respectively, last year. Those cities essentially shut down for a day around the marathon.

In San Francisco, the marathon has to work around the city, rather than the city working around the marathon, Nantell said.

Photo: Steve Ringman, The Chronicle

Runners in Golden Gate Park, with the Arboretum in the background, during the San Francisco Marathon in 1984.

Runners in Golden Gate Park, with the Arboretum in the background,...

An early start time — the race begins at 5:30 a.m. — guarantees minimal effect on traffic, especially on the Golden Gate Bridge, where two lanes are closed to accommodate runners.

The course avoids Market Street because that would cause too many headaches for people trying to cross town. It skips Chinatown and North Beach because the business owners felt inconvenienced. It loops for nearly 6 miles through Golden Gate Park because it’s easier to close roads there than in the rest of the city. Outside the park, organizers use a “valve” system of rerouting runners that opens and closes alternate streets and keeps traffic flowing.

“San Francisco is the most difficult city I know of to pull off a marathon,” said Monsoor.

He would know — he’s also staged marathons in Charlotte, N.C., Sacramento and Columbus, Ohio. Oh, and Disneyland.

On the run

“The first time we did the event at Disneyland was the weekend they also opened the Indiana Jones ride, so we had 40,000 people coming to the park that were not runners and we had to somehow do the race around them,” Monsoor said. “And even that was easier than San Francisco.”

The contemporary course has plenty of hills, though they are perhaps not as numerous, or as steep, as reputation would suggest. The race’s total elevation gain is about 1,000 feet — on par with marathons in Seattle and Oakland and far less challenging than notable climbers like Big Sur.

In any event, the scenery, runners say, more than makes up for it.

“We run through so many spots in the city — Fisherman’s Wharf, the Presidio, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury. It’s just wonderful,” said Leo Rosales, 62, who’s running his ninth marathon Sunday in the city where he was born and raised.

“I feel proud that so many runners from around the world come here,” he said. “I feel like these are all guests in my house.”